Two high-level visits of
Mongolian officials to Seoul in the past six weeks indicate that
Mongolian–South Korean relations are rapidly intensifying. This trend and
Mongolia’s mid-March facilitation of the reunion of Japanese relatives with the
daughter of a North Korean abductee illustrate the desire of Mongolian
President Tsakhia Elbegdorj to be more active in Northeast Asian (NEA) regional
politics—including the Six-Party Talks over the Democratic Republic of Korea’s
(DPRK—North Korea) nuclear program. Meanwhile, Seoul, motivated by its desire
to participate in the exploitation of Mongolia’s Tavan Tolgoi (TT) coal/uranium
mine project, has found new ways to broaden cooperation and investment with
Ulaanbaatar. Its prominent courting of the Mongolian leadership strongly
indicates that the Republic of Korea (ROK—South Korea) agrees Mongolia can play
a more significant regional role.

Mongolian Minister of Foreign
Affairs Luvsanvandan Bold visited Seoul on February 12–14. This was the first
official visit of a Mongolian foreign minister to South Korea in ten years, and
the ROK’s first foreign ministerial–level visitor since forming its cabinet
under President Park Geun-hye a year ago (The Mongol Messenger, February 14).
Bold’s meeting with Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se focused on concrete measures
to develop the bilateral comprehensive partnership. This included the creation
of an intergovernmental mechanism for economic cooperation to stimulate Korean
investment in Mongolia’s largest mining and infrastructure construction
projects and to intensify bilateral collaboration in technology, human
resources and management. Both sides agreed to cooperate in inducing change in
North Korea, and Bold also expressed support for Seoul’s push to unify the two
Koreas (Yonhap News Agency, February 12).

Foreign Minister Bold met with
Minister of Reunification Ryoo Kihl-jae on Six-Party issues and explained the
Mongolian desire to use President Elbegdorj’s new Ulaanbaatar Dialogue on
Northeast Asian Security mechanism to encourage peace on the peninsula. Bold,
who formerly headed the Ministry of Defense, and Kim Kwan-jin, Korea’s Minister
of National Defense, agreed to allow more Mongolian soldiers to study in the
ROK and to initiate new cooperation in military techniques and peacekeeping
operations. Subsequently, on March 5, ROK Deputy Defense Minister Baek
Seung-joo and Mongolian Deputy Defense Minister Battus Avirmid signed an
agreement in Seoul to ship 15 used military vehicles, including construction
equipment, to Mongolia to expand defense cooperation, support Mongolia’s United
Nations peacekeeping operations, and build infrastructure for economic
development (ROK Ministry of Defense release, Yonhap News Agency, Montsame,
March 5). Bold’s visit to the Korea National Diplomatic Academy (KNDA) resulted
in an agreement for the KNDA to assist in founding a Diplomatic Academy for
Mongolia’s foreign ministry.

A key concern for the Mongolians
was for completely visa-free travel for its 120,000 Korea-bound citizens annually.
At the ROK National Assembly, the two sides discussed inter-parliamentary
cooperation and various visa and health insurance issues (The Mongol Messenger,
February 21). The Immigration Agency of Mongolia along with the Korean
International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) subsequently launched on March 12 a
project on immigration management of a cyber system to accurately monitor the
migration of Mongolians residing abroad and create a new united border
checkpoints database of foreign nationals, organizations and foreign-invested
entities operating in Mongolia (The Mongol Messenger, March 21).

During the visit, a Memorandum of
Understanding (MOU) on Mongolia-Korea Business Forum partnership was signed by
Yachil Batsuuri, CEO of state-owned Erdenes Tavantolgoi LLC (ETT) (Montsame,
english.news.mn, February 18). Batsuuri’s presence signaled that, going
forward, South Koreans will play a more meaningful part in the exploitation of
the 6.8 billion ton TT coal deposit. Three weeks later it was announced that Korea
Gas Corporation (KOGAS) signed an MOU with ETT and Mongolia’s largest drilling
company, Elgen, to strengthen development of a Korean-Mongolian research
cooperation network and forge a partnership to upgrade TT’s resource-making
technologies using non-traditional energy sources. The three companies will
analyze coal-bed methane (CBM) as well as share production technologies and
technologies for enhanced CBM recovery (BusinessKorea reported in Montsame,
english.news.mn, March 5).

Additionally, on March 12–15
Mongolian Parliamentary Speaker Zandaakhuu Enkhbold journeyed to Seoul, and
during his courtesy call on President Park, the Korean head of state emphasized
that his visit was important for Mongolian-South Korea relations. Park also
thanked her Mongolian counterpart for appealing to North Korea to cooperate
with the UN during his visit to Pyongyang in November 2013: “This appeal was
very important and […] the unification process will have an important role to
the development of coexisting countries” (The Mongol Messenger, March 21). Park
and Enkhbold discussed the ROK’s “Eurasian Initiative” to promote regional
development and the complementary Mongolian plan to construct a railway network
that will connect Eurasian and NEA countries. Enkhbold also toured the South
Korea Industrial Complex Corporation (SKICC), in which some 800 industrial
plants produce 66 percent of Korea’s GDP, and visited the Korea Institute of
Science and Technology (KIST) to explore establishing a joint Science Education
Center of Mongolia and South Korea. The speaker attended a Mongolian–South
Korea Business Forum meeting where a cooperation memorandum was signed between
ETT and Daelim Petrochemical Corporation. He also visited the Pusan-Jinhae Free
Economic Zone and held a meeting with 6,000 Mongolians working there (Montsame,
March 17).

During Enkhbold’s visit, the
Mongolians hosted a reunion between the Japanese parents of Megumi Yokota, who
was abducted by North Korea 40 years ago, with their granddaughter (Yomiuri
Shimbun, March 16). It is widely speculated that this reunion resulted from
Mongolian President Elbegdorj’s 2013 trip to North Korea, and a positive sign
to resolve the logjam between Japan and the DPRK, which is preventing closer
economic ties. Japanese commentators believe that Tokyo will use the
Ulaanbaatar meeting as a step toward setting up an official government meeting
on the abduction issue (Montsame, March 17). It was no coincidence that
Mongolian Finance Minister Chultem Ulaan led a delegation to South Korea’s
Strategy and Finance Ministry and National Tax Service on March 17–19. When
Ulaan met with Hyun Oh-seok, the ROK’s deputy prime minister and minister of
strategy and finance, it is likely that he reported on the reunion as well as
exchanged opinions on taxation cooperation (Montsame, english.news.mn, March
17).

The number of high-level
bilateral exchanges between Mongolia and South Korea should significantly
increase this year, as the two countries prepare for a state visit to South
Korea by President Elbegdorj in 2015, which will coincide with the 25th
anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two states.

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